Year
2016
Volume
10
Number
2
Page
200
Language
English
Court
Reference
C.B. PAVESE, “Converging Perspectives, Cross-cutting Approaches: Assessing Voting Cohesion in UNHRC Regional Groups”, HRILD 2016, nr. 2, 200-218
Recapitulation
With 47 members allocated into five regional groups, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is organised under the ‘equitable regional distribution principle’. In addition to being allocated to these formal groups, when adopting a strategy to cooperate member states forge other ad hoc alliances and coalitions. But does this arrangement imply that regional groups serve for electoral purposes only? Or is there a more dynamic political dimension within these groups capable of influencing the Council´s activities? Addressing these questions, this article argues that the relevance of the groups to the Council goes beyond the question of membership. Furthermore, as they hold the potential to be arenas for cooperation, an analysis of the engagement of the members of a group highlights important elements in regard to the preferences of actors in the Council. This paper assesses roll-call voting cohesion across regional groups in the UNHRC. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, it first discusses the distribution of membership in the UN system and specifically in the UNHRC in terms of regional groups. Secondly, it summarises the academic debate on regional groups’ cohesion in the UN system. Thirdly, it assesses the voting positions of member states across 287 resolutions adopted at the regular sessions of the Council from 2006 to 2015. The results allow the conclusion that regional blocs are not merely a formality of the Council. Thus, the appraisal of these groups as political arenas provides interesting insights that assist an understanding of the politics of the Council and the pattern of engagement amongst its members.